If that garage or outbuilding cleanout is long overdue, one of the best ways to do it is to rent a dumpster. Home projects like remodeling and construction produce considerable waste, and sending it to the landfill is bad for the environment. Choosing a company that can recycle as much of the waste as possible helps to reduce the impact.
Recycling Fun Facts
Here are a few things you might not know about recycling.
- Every minute, 350,000 aluminum cans are made.
- Aluminum can be recycled an unlimited amount of times.
- A ton of recycled steel saves 1,000 pounds of coal.
- An average American uses seven trees’ worth of paper and wood products.
- Plastic bottles take 700 years to begin to break down.
- You could power a 100-watt light bulb for four hours from the energy saved by recycling one glass bottle.
- Up to 75% of all residential trash can be recycled.
- Every month, enough glass bottles are thrown out in the U.S. to fill a skyscraper.
- Saving only 17 trees can absorb 250 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
- Americans put nearly 38 billion plastic water bottles in the trash each year.
- The Great Pacific Garbage Patch covers an area twice the size of the state of Texas and weighs 3 million tons.
What Can You Do?
It’s easy to look at these stats and think that what you do with your waste won’t make a big difference. You have to remember that these numbers are a result of collective action, and that’s from people contributing to the problem a little at a time every day. The good news is that these trends can work in reverse if more people make conscious decisions about how to dispose of their waste.
The average American produces 1,609 pounds of trash per year. This means that a family of five that recycles can save about four tons of waste from going into the landfill. It adds up quickly when a community does its part!
The next time a project involves a big cleanout, you can make a difference by being conscientious about reducing the amount of waste that goes to the landfill. You can search for a company committed to doing its part, too, by recycling as much of the waste as possible. You can also check into garbage services that offer a recycling program for your weekly trash.
Dumpster Rental That Makes a Difference
If you have a project that requires a dumpster and would like to do it in an environmentally friendly way, contact A&A Recycling in San Jose, CA for residential dumpster rental services. We also offer commercial and construction dumpster rentals.